Aether Academy: Welcome to Paradise
by fvckbreathing
Summary: AU Alola. Follows the story of a troubled boy and his Deino while they attend the prestigious Aether Academy. Mysteries are uncovered and hard battles are fought.
1. Chapter 1: The Academy

The boy had long black and blue hair. He stood about 2 inches too long for his bed at home, and barely had enough room for his best friend to sit next to him. "Deino, you awake?" The small dinosaur growled in response. The boy smiled and patted Deino's head. "Whatever loser, see you in the morning."

"You know, leaving home is something I never thought you guys wanted me to do. I mean, I was never allowed to hang out with my friends at their cribs, like ever, but now I'm being shipped away, and I have no say in it. Do you want me locked up or not?" "Oliver," The boys father laughed, "We don't want you locked up, we want you to hang around better people. Your friends are low lives." "And there's nothing wrong with being a low life dear." Oliver's mother chimed in. "Right." Agreed his father. "But the kind of people you'll meet at the academy are going to be people who can push you to be more. People who expect something out of you. Just trust us, this is a good change of scenery." What should have been a 14-minute car ride was taking over 25 minutes "Really squeezing in as much time with me as you can, huh. Gonna miss me that much?" Oliver commented. He looked to his left to see his blind friend biting the seatbelt Oliver had fastened him in. He thought it would be kind of him to maybe stop Deino from destroying his father's backseat. But seeing that the two of them were being sent off to a remote island, Oliver thought this might make a nice goodbye gift. "You know Dad, I was really happy where I was. My friends finally considered me to be one of them, and the whole incident with the Exeggutor Express really got blown out of proportion. Do you even care that this isn't what I want?" Instead of giving a response, Oliver's father simply turned up the radio and proceeded to tune out his fifteen-year-old boy.

Upon arriving at the docks in Malie City, Oliver's father turned down the car radio and tinkered with the rear view mirror of his car. "Son, I want you to do your best." He said staring into the car's mirror." "You have a chance to start over, so make sure you use it wisely. Don't slack off." "Love you too." "Honey, you know we're doing this because we want what's best for you, right?" His Mom turned around and told him. At least she was willing to make eye contact. Oliver nodded in response and stepped out of the car door.

The ship was painted white and gold, it had the Aether Academy's logo on each side and two giant motors hiding underneath the waters. The boy's Deino walked beside him, leaning on Oliver's leg for support in knowing which way was safe to walk. The ship was large, not cruise or yacht large, but larger than any sailboat he had ever been on. Oliver thought about his friends back home, what they'd say if they could see him right now. Hell, even breaking the news to them that he was being sent away to the Aether Academy was devastating. Some of his friends made fun of him, others pitied him. But just like back home, no one even asked if that's what he wanted. Oliver looked off the railing of the ship, he watched as the Island he had grown up on got smaller and smaller in the distance. "No point in looking behind I guess." Oliver changed his view towards the artificial island the boat was coming up on. The Aether Academy. It's insane to think that someone had the idea to make an entire island and then put 20% of Alola's teenagers on it. In Oliver's mind, that was a recipe for disaster.

When the boat arrived, the students were separated by year. Since this was technically Oliver's second year of high school, he went to with the other Sophomores, although he thought he might feel more at home with the freshmen who also had never set foot on the island before. This meant Oliver missed out on whatever tour he could have received and was expected to know how to live on the Island already. Lucky him. "Sophomores." An old and entitled voice called out. "I expect you all to make good role models for this year's freshmen. Do as the Juniors did last year for you." "This must be the same speech he gives every year." A girl laughed from behind after hearing Oliver. If this hadn't happened, he may never have realized that he said those words out loud. Apparently, this scrawny old man was the schools Principal and Co-Founder. He didn't seem like much of a kid person by the way he spoke, and probably wasn't much of a people person either. His name was Faba. Short, wrinkly, with yellow hair and green goggles that reminded Oliver of the kind of eyes Beedrill had. Next to him was was a woman who appeared to be younger than the Principal. She was almost the same height as Faba, if it wasn't for her wild hair and Faba's slouched posture, she might be considered smaller. She wore glasses that unlike her colleague, didn't resemble the eyes of a bug type. Her name was Wicke; the Assistant Principal. The two took turns speaking and telling each student the procedure for Sophomores when it came to choosing their classes. "As you know, you are third in line when it comes to class selection." Faba started. "After the Seniors, and Juniors, you may pick which periods you'd like to have free. If there's room, we'll allow it, if not, pick another. And as for your extracurricular activities, there are of course after school programs that you can choose to take part in. Finally, all of you will be taking General Education 2, and any of the following classes if you've yet to take them once before; Nursing, Type Matchups, Abilities, Status Conditions, and Moves or Evolution. Once you've obtained at least one credit for each of these classes, you will have more room to build your schedule with classes that you actually desire." Faba must have liked the sound of his own voice, Oliver thought. He talked a lot for no good reason and had a smug look on his face at the end of every word. "Starting Monday, everyone should have their schedules constructed. I implore you to be patient while waiting on our faculty to call your name. Dormitory situations are outside in the hall, let's have a great schoolyear everybody. Welcome to Paradise."

"I don't remember seeing you last year." Oliver's new roommate was telling him. "I didn't go here last year. I went to Malie City High." "Oh, so you're new? Interesting. You must be grateful for the chance to attend Aether Academy." Oliver gave his roommate a questioning look. "Yeah. I'm real grateful." "My name's Vincent. I'm here to become a Pokemon Ranger. What about you?" Oliver stared at Deino's Pokeball. He wasn't used to having Deino sit in it for so long, he wondered if his friend was lonely inside there. "I'm Oliver. I'm here to become a-I don't know what." Oliver looked up to see a shocked expression on his new friend's face. "Most kids come to the Aether Academy because they have a dream of becoming something. You don't have one?" Oliver thought about his friends back home, he honestly thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with them. Not once did he imagine himself here in this stupid academy. "Yeah, no. I don't know what I'm gonna do yet. It'll be something that gets me in trouble though. That's for sure." Vincent's glasses glistened with a reflection of light when Oliver said that. The timing could not have been more perfect. "I see. Do me a favor and keep that trouble far away from me." Oliver laughed, but stopped when he realized Vincent was being serious. "You're not the fun type, are you? Figures I get stuck with a roommate who plays by the rules. Whatever." And just like that the conversation ran dry. Both boys didn't know how to interact with each other, neither one seemed like they wanted to. Fortunately, knocking on the door broke the silence. "Vincent D'Troy and Oliver Parsun, please come outside to build this year's schedule."

Choice was something Oliver wasn't used to. At his last school, he was given a schedule and he simply followed it. Here however, he had a significant amount of control. Deciding that, instead of getting many of the classes required to graduate done and out of the way, it would be more enjoyable to take classes that he wanted to. The two mandatory classes Oliver did pick out however, were Status Conditions taught by Karen from Johto's Elite 4, and Moves being taught by Alola's own Professor Kuikui. Besides that, he chose to have two free periods at the start of the day, so he could sleep in of course. After that, Status Conditions 1, Dimensions 1, Martial Arts, Moves 1, Berries 1, and General Education 2 followed. The boy reentered his dorm to find Vincent studying his own schedule. "What classes did you pick out?" Oliver asked. It seemed like the two wouldn't get along, but there was no harm in trying, after all they were going to be roommates for the year. "A lot of my classes are focused around being a Pokemon Ranger, so I'm taking stuff like Liberation 2 and Boating 1." "This school has a boating class?" "And an Aviation one, I'm taking that next year." Oliver thought to himself, that maybe this wouldn't be as bad as he had initially thought. "Here, lets see what classes we might have together." Vincent put out his hand in a friendly manor. After exchanging schedules, the two seemed disappointed in the overall conclusion. "Just Dimensions, huh. Interesting" Maybe it was a good thing the two didn't have many classes with each other, Oliver doubted that Vincent would let him cheat off his papers anyway.

The weekend passed ever so slowly. Oliver and Vincent both spent most of their time sitting in their rooms talking about Pokemon. Unsurprisingly, it seemed like there was a common interest there. Vincent had a Wurmple, he said he caught it over summer break during his trip out to Hoenn. Vincent's family was rich. It was kind of easy to tell with a last name like 'D'troy' Real douchebaggish. Despite this though, Vincent didn't come off as a douche. He just seemed like a smart kid who knew what he wanted. Him and Oliver surprisingly got along more than they both thought they would. They ironically bonded over both being anti-social. When Monday rolled around, it was Vincent who woke up Oliver early in the morning. "Let's get ready." Vincent said, shaking Oliver who was wrapped up in his cozy blanket burrito. "Dude. I have the first two periods free, let me sleep." It was 5 in the morning, and nothing in the world was going to make Oliver get out of bed this early. "Oh. apologies, I forgot. Well, good luck in your first class, see you in Dimensions." With that, Vincent left Oliver to rest. Trusting that he would be able to wake himself up in time in order to get ready for his first class at 7.

He was wrong.


	2. Chapter 2: First Day

Oliver knew he was late for class. 20 minutes late in fact, but the sense of urgency wasn't something that took over him. He took his time on the way to his first class. From all the mandatory classes that students were required to take, Status Conditions seemed the easiest to Oliver. What is there to study? If a Pokemon is poisoned, it's poisoned, if it's asleep, it's asleep. Seems relatively straight forward. Oliver looked up at the room's number to make sure it matched up with his schedule. He heard feminine laughing coming from inside the classroom. Almost maniacal. Oliver pushed the two behemoth doors forward and came into a dimly lighted lecture hall where students were staring back at him.

"Why hello there, I see you're showing up to third period quite late, I can only hope you have a pass from your previous class's professor." "Yup." Oliver said as he sat down, hoping he wouldn't have to prove his claim. The professor smiled seductively and headed towards Oliver. "Care to show me?" If there was one thing Oliver was bad at, it was thinking ahead. Oliver smiled, nodded his head, and proceed to get up from his seat and walk out of the classroom. 10 minutes later, Oliver returned with a late slip from Vice Principal Wicke, Professor Karen was waiting for him by the door. "Much better." The professor winked at Oliver. Her stare dug into his eyes and was strong enough to make him severely rethink his opinion on older women. "Class," She began "This is Oliver. Laugh at him." Very few kids did, and those who laughed stopped soon after when they realized they weren't being followed. The professor made a sour face. "Hmph. Boring." She walked back to the front of the class in such a way that caught the attention of every male student inside the room. She was going to be hard to ignore. "If we don't want to make fun of the late kid, I guess I'll go back to teaching." She needlessly stretched out her chest and went on to discuss the many different categories of status effects. She had an Umbreon sitting at the front of her room, Oliver recognized that she must be a dark type user. He wondered if having a dark type himself would score some brownie points with the Professor. Somehow, a seductive and attractive teacher wasn't enough to hold Oliver's attention, and he was soon looking around the room to watch his classmates. He saw that most of them, boys mostly, were in a complete trance watching Karen's every move. Oliver wondered if they were even listening to her, lord knows he wasn't. "Oliver." The Professor called out. "You were late, so I get to pick on you. What type of status condition is a taunted Pokemon experiencing? Medical or heat of the moment?" Taunted, Oliver had never heard of that kind of status. He only ever knew of paralyzed, poisoned, asleep, and burned. Oliver took a second to consider his information. "Heat of the moment?" Oliver asked. "Is that a question Oliver or are you answering?" "I'm answering?" Karen rolled her eyes. "Correct. Medical status conditions are things such poisoned, paralyzed, badly poisoned, frozen, asleep, burned, and confused. Things that can be healed by using items like full restores or awakenings. Taunted is an effect that will go away by itself and cannot be cured with these medical items." Oliver was proud to say the least, that he was able to come to this conclusion based off the fact that he had never heard a status condition be referred to as anything other than medical before, immediately hearing another category prompted him to think about the statuses humans can find themselves in. "Nice job." Whispered a girl behind him. Oliver turned around to see a pink haired girl writing notes instead of staring mindlessly at the teacher. The two girls next to her were not as busy with their notebook however, they were too busy being in awe with the rest of the class as Karen pointlessly did more stretches with her arms and chest. Oliver smiled at her, but no eye contact was even made. She kept her notebook in front of her and continued to write.

Oliver's next class, fortunately, was Dimensions. He planned on sitting next to Vincent if possible, maybe avoid any attention since he wasn't going to be the 'late kid' this time. When he entered the classroom, it was much simpler and more akin to what he was used to from a high school. It was funny to him that the class about status conditions required a lecture hall, but this scientific mumbo jumbo just got a normal and bland classroom. There were machines and bookshelves lining the walls, but at first glance it resembled a friends English class or something. Oliver met eyes with Vincent, who unsurprisingly, was sitting at the very front of the class. Oliver thought that if he sat behind him it might be more difficult to cheat off Vincent, but if he sat adjacent to him it would be too obvious. Oliver settled on sitting at the back corner of Vincent. So as to not be caught by Vincent for cheating, but to still have a relatively clear view of whatever he was writing down on his paper. "Sit next to me." Vincent said, questioning his friends' motives. "I'm not much of a front of the class kind of guy. Right here is fine." Vincent shrugged and turned to face the board. Oliver looked around the room to see if he recognized anyone from his last class, he saw a familiar redheaded boy and the pink haired girl from earlier. She came up to him, "I know you." She started. "You're the late kid from last class." "You were late Oliver?" Vincent interrupted. "Only like 5 minutes." The girl snorted. "I'm Jenny, nice to meet you." She took a seat in front of him and next to Vincent. "Oliver," Oliver said motioning to himself. "and this is Vincent." Jenny smiled and waved at Vincent who barely made eye contact with her. "Well why are you guys taking this class? It's a pretty weird one to be studying unless you're interested in becoming a Pokemon Researcher." "Is that what you want to be?" Asked Oliver, the words left his mouth before he could even process what he was saying. Jenny looked taken back by how quickly Oliver asked the question, "Well no, actually. I want to be a nurse, but I think understanding other dimensions could be helpful depending on what Pokemon I might be nursing back to health. Have to be prepared for anything." "A nurse, huh." Vincent said under his breath. He looked up and straightened his glasses. The professor silenced any and all chatter coming from the students and began to explain her class. The professor's name was Burnett. She was a highly regarded Pokemon Researcher who studied all sorts of things related to other dimensions. "I know this classroom may seem boring, but I promise to make the best with what we're given. I'd like every one of you to have one of these." She walked around the class with a bucket, handing out installation discs. "Now, when you obtain your Pokedexes, as I see a few of you already have. You may install this disc and use the application called "Dream Radar. It will come up and show you a very simple dimension we call the 'Dream World' This is where we will do most of our studying for this year. I'm very excited to work with all of you, starting tomorrow everyone should be able to see into the dream world." Vincent was one of the lucky few who had gotten his Pokedex already. "When do we get those?" "General education hands them out, from then on classes will give you installation discs that can be used to upgrade it." "Weren't you here last year?" Jenny asked. "No. He's from Ula'Ula and went to some high school there instead." Vincent answered for him. "Thanks buddy, but I can talk for myself." He shot an annoyed look towards Vincent, who was far too busy playing with his new Dream Radar application to pay any attention. "So, what we just look through the camera and we can see the Dream world?" Oliver asked, he leaned over to try to get whatever Vincent was looking at into his field of view." "I guess? I don't know if it's working all I see is what my camera would be showing me normally." "So, as I'm sure everyone has figured out by now." Professor Burnett began, "The dream world looks just like ours." "Laame." Echoed from the back of the class. "But it's capabilities are of so much more. For today, since not everyone is able to explore the dream world as of now, I will be discussing the history of dimensional research. Strap in, this is going to be a fun ride."

The next class on Oliver's list was his P.E. substitute. Martial Arts taught by Bruno from the Kanto Elite 4. It was a pretty straight forward one and got Oliver to practice some much-needed stretches after sitting inside his room for two days. Neither Jenny nor Vincent has this class with him, but there was that red-haired boy again who caught Oliver's attention. He went up to him and tried to introduce himself. "Hey, I'm Oliver, we have like three classes together." The boy looked at Oliver up and down and then laughed. "You were that late kid from Status Conditions." Oliver smiled. "Yup that's me. I was too busy sleeping to realize I had a class to go to." "Oh wow." The boy said and then proceeded to look away, "You must have missed your first two periods as well. Funny." Oliver didn't know if this boy refused to make eye contact because he was socially inept, or because he thought he was better than him. Either way it felt weird to Oliver. "My name's Hugo." Said the boy, still refusing to make eye contact with his peer. Oliver laughed and walked away. "I can be socially awkward too." He said talking to himself, which made a freshman near him laugh. He looked towards the direction of the laughter and saw a medium height blonde girl with a white dress and hat on. Her eyes were green like an Aquav berry, something that distracted Oliver far too much. She tilted her hat when she realized Oliver was staring at her. "Sorry." She said. "I just thought you were being funny." Her cheeks grew red and it became easy to tell she wanted an out for the predicament she had put herself in. "No, I uh. Your eyes they're just really pretty." Oliver spat out. "Oh." The two stared at each other for a few seconds until the bell rang, signaling for the next class to start.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the green-eyed girl was heading in the same direction as Oliver was. It appeared like he was following her. When they both arrived at their next class, the girl sat in the front, and Oliver sat in the farthest corner away from her as to not be weird. "Alright everybody." A shirtless man came in yelling. Everybody, alphabetical order let's get this going." Of course, Oliver got seated right next to the younger blonde he had been hoping to avoid. "Ahem." Oliver started. "My name's Uhhliver. You're?" "Lillie." She smiled. Thankfully the green haired boy in front of them relieved the tension in the room by slamming his two legs on his seats desk."Hau. this isn't back home; you don't get to do that here." The boy smiled after already getting the professors attention. "My bad, my bad." He looked behind him to see Lillie and Oliver staring at him. "Hi." "Hi." "Hello." Everyone stared quietly at one another. "Well I see you two aren't any good at conversation." Hau turned around and began to take his feet off the desk he had put them on. "Welcome to Moves. In this course I will be talking about the kind of moves Pokemon can learn, the practicalities of some moves, and the power that they can give your Pokemon. There will be a lot of injuries in this class, so if you want something a little less exciting, Evolutions is right across the hall. My name is Professor Kuikui, and welcome to paradise." Just like Burnett did in Dimensions, Kuikui handed out installation discs to every student. Oliver noticed that the colors of Hau's and Lillie's pokedex were different from the color of Vincent's. Maybe to signify their year. "With this, your Pokedex will have an entire database of every move known by any Pokemon. You will also be able to see which moves are compatible with any of your party Pokemon. It's pretty neat. We'll be studying from here most of the time." Oliver looked over at the girl next to him to see what the Professor was discussing, since he was one of the few students to not have received a Pokedex yet. Lillie could feel Oliver's glance striking her direction and suddenly paused instead of continuing to play around with her new application. "Quit staring at her man." Hau said, giving Oliver a concerning look. "What, no, no it's not like that. I don't have a Pokedex yet, so I was just" Oliver struggling to prove himself innocent made Hau develop a devilish smile. "Aren't you two cute" He said.

The class ended and Oliver was the first to leave, not wanting to make Lillie or himself any more uncomfortable, he arrived at his next class before anyone else. Something that hadn't happened thus far today. The room was filling up and Oliver recognized the green haired boy from his last class. "Hey." Hau approached him, "You're the awkward guy with cool hair." Hau said as he took a seat next to Oliver. "You must be thinking of someone else." "Wait really?" Hau looked puzzled. "You got a twin or something?" Oliver laughed and shook his head, "No, you're just an idiot. I'm the awkward guy with cool hair." "I'm the idiot? You couldn't keep your eyes off the barbie doll sitting next to you, she had your tongue completely tied." "Oliver has a crush?" A teasing feminine voice made its way into the conversation. It was Jenny. Oliver hadn't noticed before, maybe because it was early in the morning, but Jenny looked really nice with her glasses on, "No I don't. She was just sitting next to me and I wanted to see her Pokedex. Still have yet to get one." "Oh, me too!" Jenny squealed. We much have our last class together. "Supreme." Oliver said with a smug smile.

Berries felt like it dragged on forever. The class was taught by a professor named Ramos, he gave every student an installation disc for Berries and had a conversation with himself about the different types of mulch for 50 minutes. Oliver had taken the class because it sounded easy, not boring. Finally, there was General Education. The last class of the day. Jenny and Oliver walked to class together and chose to sit at the same table as each other. Oliver recognized Hugo among the class, but instead of sitting with Oliver Hugo decided to go to the far table in the back. "Good afternoon everyone." The professor started. "My name is Lorelei. I'm an expert at Ice types and discipline. If anyone would like to test me on that, I'm more than happy to show you." Lorelei grabbed a basket of Pokedexes and handed them out to her class. Surprisingly, there were only 14 students, with 5 tables each being able to hold at least 6 students, the class seemed emptier than it should be. "I'm sure you all have a handful of installation discs to install onto your Pokedex. Please take your time installing whatever applications you must, I've had far too much wine to actually teach you anything today." Lorelei said with a smile. She poured herself a glass of blood red liquid and proceeded to take a seat at her desk. "I've got only got Berrydex and Dream Radar, a lot of my classes are hands on stuff." Jenny said to Oliver. "Huh, I haven't really been paying attention to any of what my classes has been handing out to me, but I think I only have three to install." Oliver said wearing a puzzled expression which prompted Jenny to laugh. "It's cool that we have four classes together, right?" Asked Jenny. "Yeah, I only got one with Vincent and he's my roommate. But hanging out with nursing girl won't be too bad." Jenny punched him teasingly, Oliver still acted as if it hurt to milk out any sort of pity he could from his female friend. "What's your deal? What are you here for anyways?" Jenny asked. "I don't know, I just kind of got sent here by my parents after vandalizing a bus back home." Jenny's eyes widened. "How bad?" "Not horrible, we just did graffiti on the inside of the windows. It's their fault for leaving the bus left unlocked." Jenny laughed and put a Pokeball on the table. "This is my partner, Roxie." She said with a smile. "My Dad's a paleontologist and one day he came home with this idiot chewing on his arm." Oliver smiled at the word "idiot" something he often called his partner Pokemon too. He looked at the red Pokeball and saw a Tyrunt staring back at him. The small Pokemon looked like it was running toward something, but the ball just stood still. "So, you want to be a nurse with a Tyrunt? That's fitting." Another punch from Jenny aimed right at Oliver's shoulder. The two laughed it off and Oliver put his Pokeball on the table. "This is Deino. He can't see where he's walking so he usually gets himself hurt, he's pretty stupid in all honesty. I love him." Inside the red Pokeball you could see Deino fast asleep, a drastic difference from the previous dragon type. Jenny smiled and looked at Oliver. "He kind of looks like you." Oliver shot a death stare back at Jenny, and she her smile widened. "Whatever."

**Authors Note:** thanks4reading


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